We got it already!

Actors are smart, we got it already.  I was watching a show the other day in which two actors were engaged in witty repartee.  “It’s like asking me who is buried in Grant’s tomb,” one of the actors read…err said.  The obvious answer, and the gist of the joke, is that Grant is buried there, but who is Grant is a question I would love to ask these actors when all of the scripts are put down for the day.  Is it Foster Grant, Cary Grant, or Hugh Grant?  My guess is that most actors, when taken off script, would guess Cary Grant, because Hugh’s not dead, and they would probably guess that a sunglass designer wouldn’t merit a tomb of monumental mention.  My guess is that they would know that Cary (Archibald Alexander Leach) Grant starred in some war film in his career, because they all did back then, and that his tomb was created to memorialize that movie.  My guess is that they’ve probably seen a fifty dollar bill, and they’ve probably heard of the Civil War, and they know that there were presidents that existed between Washington and the first president they heard of when they were six years old, but they don’t know any of them.  I’m guessing that they’ve also never had the time (see intellectual curiosity) to learn anything about them either.

Actors are not given intelligence equivalency tests before they’re hired.  They’re hired on looks first, how they look on camera second, and if they can present information in a convincing enough fashion that the audience believes that they know something about the material they are memorizing, then presenting.  I know that actors are not all equivalent to second graders in their knowledge base, but I’m guessing that my third grade nephew could tell them some things about U.S. History that would raise their eyebrows.  I may pick on actors a lot in this blog, but I’m being led to believe that I’m the only one that gets upset about this mass delusion we have that they’re smarter than they actually are, because they can memorize the lines written for them.

Women are smarter than men, we got it already.  Another thing that bothers me is that whenever one actor wins an argument over another on a television show, that some people find validation in those victories.  The winners of arguments in scripted television shows have been predetermined by the screenwriters, the pressure the producers place on the screenwriters, and the pressure the broadcast networks place on the producers.  In the days of the Lucy Show, a married couple was required to keep one foot on the ground if they got into bed together.  Perhaps there should be such a requirement of the audience, so that we can keep in touch with reality.  Watching these “arguments” is like watching Tom and Jerry, or Roadrunner cartoons.  You always know who is going to win, but you’re supposed to enjoy the chase.  I’ve always been one that enjoys the unexpected more than the chase.

You like to dance, we got it already.  How many times do I need to hear someone tell me they love to dance?  How many people have told me that they danced the night away?  You danced for six hours?  Really?  You maintained a peak of intensity throughout all those songs?  For six hours?  How many breaks did you take?  All right, so you happened to be at a place that involved some dancing, and you did dance.  When you were on the dance floor, however, you just stood there and did robotic moves that had no passion for most of the night.  Then you took numerous breaks throughout.  You didn’t dance for six straight hours peaked in passion.  Don’t ever tell me you danced the night away again.

You hate God, we got it already.  Atheists hate the fact that some people believe in God.  Every atheist I’ve ever read, or spoken to, is more obsessed with God than any believer I’ve ever met or read.  They usually introduce you to their beliefs about two paragraphs in, and once they’ve revealed this nihilistic, rebellious aspect of their philosophy, they can’t let it go.  They pound you over the head with their belief that religion pounds you over the head to accept its beliefs.

The Earth is being destroyed, we got it already.  Judging by the periodicals in my local Books a Million store, science writers are obsessed with man’s destruction of the Earth, global warming, climate change, vegetation control, weather reassignment surgery, or whatever political name we’re supposed to call it now.  One has to imagine, unfortunately, that the editors of these magazines have tried everything else, and to avoid the end of their publication or general obscurity, they weed out consequential material for front page exclamation points that deal with man’s destruction of the Earth.  It does make for a glaring, eye popping headline, but is it always true?  Was it true in the 70’s that we were going through a cooling cycle that would lead to an ice age?  Was it true in the 80’s that we were on a path to make the Earth utterly uninhabitable in ten years?  Was it true in the 90’s that we were on a path to make the Earth utterly uninhabitable in ten years?  Who cares, it moves magazines.